Electric scooter for heavy riders - tips for choosing yours
In this video I share my experience as a heavier person finding the right electric scooter for me.
I wanted to start this channel to share about my journey with electric scooters. I discovered them in 2020 as a great escape from everything going on in the world. But as a larger fella, I discovered that weight plays a bigger factor than I expected in how these scooters perform. I found the majority of information online was from the perspective of lighter weight folks, and while I hold nothing against the skinnier among us, their experiences are just going to be different than ours. So I wanted to start this channel to share what I’ve learned as a larger rider, so you can avoid the mistakes I made along the way and benefit from tips.
So to get it this out of the way - I weigh around a stately 260 pounds. I’m very much a novice rider. For me, scooters aren’t a way to commute or race, and I’m not an adrenaline junkie. My primary goal is to just cruise around, blow off steam, and enjoy life in the open air.
So how does weight affect scooters? There is a direct relationship between weight, or mass, and force. The more weight your scooter has to move, the more force it requires. This requires more power from the battery, and performance from your motor. This can make the performance and experience on a scooter completely different for a lighter rider than a heavier one. Your range won’t be as much, and you can’t accelerate as fast. Your frame will need to be stronger, and the scooter will be heavier. Simply put, if you’re a heavier person, you’ll just going to need a better performing scooter to match the experience a lighter person may have on a lesser model. And let me tell you why this is important.
The weight each scooter can handle is often referred to as it’s maximum load, and that can vary a lot by model and manufacturer. Some of the entry level scooters have a maximum load of about 225 lbs. And if you’re heavier than that, you can ride these scooters. But there’s a danger. The frames aren’t equipped for the heavier weight, but you’re going to run the risk of ruining your scooter. I myself discovered this multiple times and it was a huge disappointment, and took a lot of patience, time and money breaking and working through different scooters to find out what’s right for me.
If you’re too heavy for the scooter, you can actually overload the controller and take out your scooter. I did this twice before I realized what was happening. It’s a bit counterintuitive, because the scooters I was riding could actually get me up and around. But I was finding they would stop operating unexpectedly while i was breaking down a hill. What I believed to be happening is that I overloaded the controller due to the regenerative breaking. This is a system which takes energy from slowing the scooter down, and pushing it back into the battery system. This is usually great because you can gain some battery back, and slow down faster. But being heavier, I generated more energy breaking than the system was rated for. By pushing this increased energy into an already full system, it overloaded the controller and just zap’d the scooter. And just like that the fun’s over. It does feel strange that breaking could be a hazard, but believe me, it’s real.
The second thing to look out for is overloading the motor. Each motor is rated for a different wattage, which is power it can deliver. As we discussed earlier, more weight requires more power from the motors. The problem I ran into is that I live in a hilly area. Going uphill requires more power than the straight away. No doubt any heaverier rider discovers this very quickly. Speed goes down and your motor can struggle going up hills. I would really advise you to just avoid or walk up hills that your scooter can’t handle. If you’re slowing significantly, your motor is struggling. It’s going to be overworked and heating up, and eventually will just blow. Depending on how you ride, you should look for a single motor scooter that has high wattage, or better yet a dual motor scooter to provide more power and torque.
The final thing i’d like to mention is that not having the right scooter really gets in the way of enjoying the ride. I’ve broken down more times than I would have liked to and had to walk a scooter a mile and half home over a bunch hills. That in itself is no fun, but knowing you’re on a model with that possibly it really takes away the feeling of freedom when riding. That’s what’s all about, at least to me, and being on a board that I can’t rely on just kind of kills the fun. So, I would really recommend not skimping and just get the scooter that can handle heavyweights. Probably dual motor. Probably 800, 1000 watts or more. It’s going to be a beast, but it will be appropriate for you.
Видео Electric scooter for heavy riders - tips for choosing yours канала Heavyweight Scooters
I wanted to start this channel to share about my journey with electric scooters. I discovered them in 2020 as a great escape from everything going on in the world. But as a larger fella, I discovered that weight plays a bigger factor than I expected in how these scooters perform. I found the majority of information online was from the perspective of lighter weight folks, and while I hold nothing against the skinnier among us, their experiences are just going to be different than ours. So I wanted to start this channel to share what I’ve learned as a larger rider, so you can avoid the mistakes I made along the way and benefit from tips.
So to get it this out of the way - I weigh around a stately 260 pounds. I’m very much a novice rider. For me, scooters aren’t a way to commute or race, and I’m not an adrenaline junkie. My primary goal is to just cruise around, blow off steam, and enjoy life in the open air.
So how does weight affect scooters? There is a direct relationship between weight, or mass, and force. The more weight your scooter has to move, the more force it requires. This requires more power from the battery, and performance from your motor. This can make the performance and experience on a scooter completely different for a lighter rider than a heavier one. Your range won’t be as much, and you can’t accelerate as fast. Your frame will need to be stronger, and the scooter will be heavier. Simply put, if you’re a heavier person, you’ll just going to need a better performing scooter to match the experience a lighter person may have on a lesser model. And let me tell you why this is important.
The weight each scooter can handle is often referred to as it’s maximum load, and that can vary a lot by model and manufacturer. Some of the entry level scooters have a maximum load of about 225 lbs. And if you’re heavier than that, you can ride these scooters. But there’s a danger. The frames aren’t equipped for the heavier weight, but you’re going to run the risk of ruining your scooter. I myself discovered this multiple times and it was a huge disappointment, and took a lot of patience, time and money breaking and working through different scooters to find out what’s right for me.
If you’re too heavy for the scooter, you can actually overload the controller and take out your scooter. I did this twice before I realized what was happening. It’s a bit counterintuitive, because the scooters I was riding could actually get me up and around. But I was finding they would stop operating unexpectedly while i was breaking down a hill. What I believed to be happening is that I overloaded the controller due to the regenerative breaking. This is a system which takes energy from slowing the scooter down, and pushing it back into the battery system. This is usually great because you can gain some battery back, and slow down faster. But being heavier, I generated more energy breaking than the system was rated for. By pushing this increased energy into an already full system, it overloaded the controller and just zap’d the scooter. And just like that the fun’s over. It does feel strange that breaking could be a hazard, but believe me, it’s real.
The second thing to look out for is overloading the motor. Each motor is rated for a different wattage, which is power it can deliver. As we discussed earlier, more weight requires more power from the motors. The problem I ran into is that I live in a hilly area. Going uphill requires more power than the straight away. No doubt any heaverier rider discovers this very quickly. Speed goes down and your motor can struggle going up hills. I would really advise you to just avoid or walk up hills that your scooter can’t handle. If you’re slowing significantly, your motor is struggling. It’s going to be overworked and heating up, and eventually will just blow. Depending on how you ride, you should look for a single motor scooter that has high wattage, or better yet a dual motor scooter to provide more power and torque.
The final thing i’d like to mention is that not having the right scooter really gets in the way of enjoying the ride. I’ve broken down more times than I would have liked to and had to walk a scooter a mile and half home over a bunch hills. That in itself is no fun, but knowing you’re on a model with that possibly it really takes away the feeling of freedom when riding. That’s what’s all about, at least to me, and being on a board that I can’t rely on just kind of kills the fun. So, I would really recommend not skimping and just get the scooter that can handle heavyweights. Probably dual motor. Probably 800, 1000 watts or more. It’s going to be a beast, but it will be appropriate for you.
Видео Electric scooter for heavy riders - tips for choosing yours канала Heavyweight Scooters
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